Rosy Simas on Weave

I am Haudenosaunee. My ancestors are Seneca, Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Stockbridge-Munsee, and Neutral. I am, however, claimed only by the Seneca Nation, where I am enrolled, where I am a citizen. I am Heron clan, like my mother, her mother, and their mothers before them.

The DNA passed to us from our parents, their parents, and parents before, along with our life of work and play, shape the very structures of our bodies.

The living architecture of my body is formed by movement deeply connected to the earth, my culture, and community. My gestures and expressions are ancient and at the same time new. I am the accumulation of actions, images, and memories of love, war, betrayal, diplomacy, and friendship.

To create dances, I develop movement generating exercises that are proposed to the composer and performers to create embodied stories derived from deep listening. In this way we are developing a way of being which is decolonizing our bodies.

We listen and listen further to evoke textures, images, words, memories, and feelings passed to us from the experiences of our families and ancestors. What evolves is a web of story expressed through movement, vibration, tone, light, and the absence of light.

The concept of the Weave project is simple: individual stories woven together and framed through a Native feminist lens.

However, given the political state of our country, the ongoing acts of colonization, and the oppressions that seek to divide us, creating Weave has been complex.

It is not enough to say that this work is created in deep collaboration with the performers, designers, our production assistant, and the writers. We all bring a breadth and depth to Weave. Without each artist’s creativity, labor, and imagination there would be no Weave.

We are an international group of Native, Indigenous, European, Queer, Transgender, and People of Color artists. Regardless of the multiple barriers placed in front of us all to be together, we are honored to share Weave with you.

How do we re-write a creation story? One in which women who are the ones who create life—have created the universe? [...] We can initiate an action through movement that possibly could express the power behind all we have come to understand as life.